1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of authentication and more particularly to authenticating parties to electronic financial and other transactions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Present-day commerce increasingly relies on electronic transactions, and as such, a party to a proposed transaction needs to be able to verify that the other parties to the proposed transaction are legitimate. Illegitimate other parties include hackers, those interested in perpetrating identity theft, and those interested in perpetrating fraud, to name but a few. Accordingly, various authentication methodologies have been developed to verify a party's identity prior to an electronic transaction. Unfortunately, prior art methods all have weaknesses that can be exploited or that introduce burdens on users and managing organizations.
For example, the use of a password is a common method to verify a person's identity. However, passwords can be determined through trial and error, copied from electronic communications, and learned in various ways, such as watching a person typing on a keyboard. Other forms of authentications offer higher degrees of security, but still have vulnerabilities. For instance, biometric data cannot be copied simply by looking over a person's shoulder, but can still be duplicated. Fingerprints can be lifted off of drinking glasses, biometric data can be intercepted in electronic communications, voices can be recorded, and so forth. As those seeking to defeat authentication systems become more sophisticated, new authentication systems have had to become more complex, and generally more cumbersome for the users. What is needed, therefore, is an authentication system that is simple, rapid, and secure against illegitimate use.